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#NYTFail #IranElection - Why Twitter Users Need to Think Before Tweeting

Posted by Mike Volpe on Wed, Jun 17, 2009
 

sheep herd twitter

A big topic on Twitter today related to the Iran Elections was the #NYTfail topic accusing the New York Times of subjecting Iranian demonstrators to potential danger by "exposing" the usernames of people on Twitter and tweeting from Iran.

For example, this tweet was really popular: "Please RT! NYT publishing sensitive names of Iranians on Twitter. Get them to stop! #NYTfail #iranelection"

Really?  Someone's Twitter username is a secure piece of data?  Isn't Twitter totally public and open? (Yes, it is!)  Your Twitter username is no less public than your website URL or LinkedIn profile.  Your tweets are broadcast around the world, indexed by Google, stored in lots of databases.  Your followers names are public and easily accessible, as are all of your tweets and the people you follow.  If you want to remain anonymous, you need to use an anonymous name and be careful not to mention anything personally identifiable.

So, as far as the #NYTfail #iranelection thing... get over it!  The New York Times did nothing wrong, and probably did a lot right by publishing the story and spreading more light on what is happening in Iran.

Twitter users need to use their brain.  Twitter is a fast moving and quite viral medium, which is good and bad.  News travels fast.  I have seen Amber Alerts spread fast on Twitter - a good thing.  But today the #NYTfail "news" that was completely false and misleading became a hot topic because of hysteria and a herd mentality.  Please... if you are on Twitter, use your brain before just blindly retweeting other messages.

Photo credit: michaelbrittain

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COMMENTS

Kudos man...It takes practice to hide on the 'net...

posted @ Wednesday, June 17, 2009 5:03 PM by Jim Gaudet

Mike, 
 
You have requested what is possibly the most difficult thing to imagine happening, let alone actually seeing it happen. That is your request to 
 
"use your brain before just blindly retweeting other messages" 
 
We are moving at a hyper speed that is making the stop and consider your actions part of our existence less desirable. In the rush to be the first or to be cool or to just be heard there is less and less thought behind more and more action. 
 
Can't stop it though so I guess we just have to grin and bear it.

posted @ Wednesday, June 17, 2009 5:14 PM by Frank Reed

We had a similar issue recently with the release of our report on Iran and Twitter (that can be found at our website).  
 
Some people were screaming that we were releasing private data, putting others in danger and working for the iranian government. None of that is true.  
 
Maybe the Iranian Gov't isn't that organized, but in the US if you Tweeted something that was something against what the CIA/FBI/NSA wanted you to (gov't codes, top secret data, etc) then by the time you stand up to get coffee its likely that the Black Vans will be outside your house- Not days later after the NYT puts your name in a report. Seeing that all of Iran's internet goes through a single pipe, and that has a filtering system that was installed on it a few years ago... I'm guessing Iran has similar data.  
 
Anyway, nothing that anyone posts about others on Twitter is private. You report your own location, name, username and content. If you use your real name (as I do) then you should expect to be found. Depending on how common your name is however, you still might be perfectly anonymous (John Smith in the US, or Muhammad in Iran are both so common that they aren't useful as identifiers).  
 
Overall, you're right Mike- people just need to think about their actions first. This isn't something people are used to on the web. I can't wait until the Presidental elections in the 2020's. I'm sure that someone will be able to drag up lewd comments that a candidate left on a YouTube video and that will be a topic of debate.

posted @ Thursday, July 09, 2009 10:24 AM by David Fisher

@David - I agree! It is shocking to me that people don't understand that twitter is public, with al the tools that make it searchable by anyone and the fact that all your info is on the public web page and that you can subscribe to things like Google alerts... etc. 
 
 
 
Hopefully people will realize some day that the web is very public.

posted @ Thursday, July 09, 2009 12:04 PM by Mike Volpe

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